


Too Weird to Live, Too Rare to Die

by BumblebeeEnby



Category: Lego Ninjago
Genre: Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Angst with a Happy Ending, Background Relationships, Gen, Hurt/Comfort, Morro (Ninjago) Redemption, My First Fanfic, Other Additional Tags to Be Added, Other Ships Not Mentioned in Tags, Wu’s A+ Parenting, don’t wanna spoil it - Freeform, please roast me
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2021-02-09
Updated: 2021-03-08
Packaged: 2021-03-15 20:28:31
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 11,822
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29320173
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BumblebeeEnby/pseuds/BumblebeeEnby
Summary: Morro couldn’t catch a break, could he?He thought he’d be able to finally rest in the Departed Realm, but instead he’s mysteriously thrust back into the realm of the living again. This time, he’s stuck in a very familiar body... his own. Just as he left it.Honestly? He’d rather be anywhere else.
Relationships: Cole & Morro (Ninjago), Lloyd Garmadon & Morro, Morro & Zane (Ninjago)
Comments: 49
Kudos: 63





	1. Third Time’s the Charm

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Quick CW for this chapter: brief mentions of torture, but not in-depth at all.

For the first week in that cave, Morro was unaware that anything was amiss. He was accustomed to death. Usually, it was full of more suffering and one’s ears being bombarded with the unceasing cries of the damned. However, these elements of the Cursed Realm were now mysteriously absent. 

He’d been through sensory deprivation torture from The Preeminent before. It wasn’t Her favorite flavor of suffering, but She did enjoy mixing it up every so often. So when Morro’s spirit faded away after the Day of the Departed, he simply sighed at his poor fortune and dissociated. Morro was very good at dissociating.

The second week, Morro gained a creeping suspicion that something wasn’t quite right. He could hear stray rocks tumbling somewhere far away. At some point, he came to notice a consistent trickling noise somewhere on his right. Every noise echoed in a way that set him on edge.

Morro jolted upright when he realized he could  _ feel _ his surroundings as well. He’d been slouching on the ground, and now he wasn’t. 

There were a select few senses that The Preeminent was completely inept at replicating. She was incompetent at simulating touch, and almost equally amateurish with her grasp on proprioception. Usually, all this meant was that She needed to be creative with her punishments. Now, he realized, it implied something completely unprecedented.

He wasn’t  _ in  _ the Cursed Realm.

He had a body that he could  _ feel _ , and it didn’t feel  _ right _ . 

Morro blindly stumbled to his feet. He opened his eyes, but nothing changed. He stood there in the dark, furiously blinking and grinding his teeth, before thrusting his hands to his eyes. To his chagrin, it seemed he didn’t have eyes. Frantically, his hands scoured the rest of his body, taking note of three observations: He was wearing some ragged clothes, he had hair, and he  _ didn’t have skin _ . 

His hands trembled as they moved under the rags he was wearing and up into a vacant ribcage. Morro jerked his hands away. He felt nauseated, realized he didn’t even have a stomach, and immediately felt more nauseated than before.

_ This is fine _ , he thought as his entire body rattled violently,  _ I’m possessing a corpse, I can just leave. _

Morro forced the bones he possessed to steady, calmed himself with deep, imaginary breaths, and stepped out of the body.

Morro stepped forward, tripped, and clattered to the floor with his spirit still held firmly in place. He let out an abrasive snarl, stood up, and tried again. He thrashed and raged, trying desperately to eject himself from the body. His soul strained against the bones he was trapped in. He couldn’t be trapped. He wouldn’t allow himself to be trapped  _ again _ . He let another scream tear through him as he forced his ghost out of its bony prison, unfamiliar pain wracking his non-existent nerves. He collapsed in a quivering heap on the ground. He was trapped.

No. He refused to be trapped again in some new horrible place. If he couldn’t leave this body, he was going to leave this place and drag this corpse along with him. He marched through the rocky, damp, black void around him and turned whenever he hit a wall. He didn’t care how long it took. He was going to keep walking until he found his way out of this cave, or until all the bones he inhabited were ground to dust from grinding against stone. At least this way, he was in control.

His sense of time could charitably be described as shaky. Morro had no idea how long he staggered around in the darkness, narrowly avoiding cliff ledges and echoing rapids that were deceptively hard to locate. He’d fallen into water exactly fifteen times so far. The depth was irrelevant, and he found himself jerking and thrashing and shrieking in a panic every time he dipped in. Once the fear passed, all he could feel was hot, simmering shame for being such a coward. The water wasn’t even hurting him. At least no one was around to watch him act so infuriatingly weak.

All shame and frustration were dashed from his mind when he glimpsed the smallest mote of light in the darkness ahead of him.

Morro scrambled towards the light, heaving through imagined lungs. When he finally stepped out of the cave and into the open air, he collapsed to the ground and began laughing hysterically. If he could cry, he would be, judging by the gasping hiccups that he emitted.

He could see the sky! He wasn’t sure he’d ever seen a more beautiful sky. By all accounts, it was an average blue sky on a clear day, but Morro had already burned the sight into his memory.

When he finally began to calm down, creeping dread invaded his elation. He knew this place. It had changed drastically, being not but a craterous plateau, but the surrounding landscape was unmistakable. This was what remained of the Caves of Despair.

Slowly, Morro looked down at the body he was trapped in. He knew these decayed robes. He grasped at the hair that miraculously clung to his skull and stared back incredulously at the long black hair with one scandalously green lock running through it. 

This wasn’t  _ a corpse _ . This was  _ his corpse _ .

Was this his  _ life  _ now? To be stuck as a ghost and now as a what? A Skulkin? Did he count as a Skulkin now? Was the universe hellbent on forcing him into one form of undeath after another? Being stuck in a mannequin for one night was manageable, but this was something else entirely. He shrieked to himself.

“Just let me DIE!”

His words echoed uselessly through the mountains.

What did the world expect him to do now? What else could it want from him? He’d been allowed to live again and he’d turned it down. The ninja deserved to live just as much as he deserved to be  _ DEAD _ . That was how it was supposed to be, he’s made his peace with that, but apparently, someone in Cloud Kingdom hadn’t received the memo.

Morro screamed at the gods and chucked rocks down the mountain until sunset. He quivered and spewed curses at the universe for having the audacity to screw him over  _ yet again _ .

The air remained eerily still.

Morro whipped his bony arms around in the fading sunlight. He wanted to destroy this place. He wanted to rip it apart with the most violent tornado he could muster. He channeled all of this fury and indignant rage into the air around him. The air didn’t budge.

He thrust his arm out with an aggressive kiai. The air idled lazily around him in response.

“Are you  _ fucking  _ kidding me?”

He kicked at the air, shouted, and snapped his palms out in front of him, willing a gale to form.

The air yawned with languorous boredom.

He’d assumed this situation couldn’t possibly get any worse, but the universe just loved fucking with him, didn’t it? Morro was now acutely aware of how disconnected he felt from the air around him in a way he was entirely unfamiliar with. Being unable to tap into his powers felt akin to the pain of trying to move a phantom limb. The air around him was a crushing prison, and every movement the wind made against his accord sent a shudder up his spine.

Morro trembled on his knees, grasping at the ground and sobbing with humiliating abandon. He wasn’t sure how long he stayed like that, and he didn’t care. Nothing mattered anymore. Nothing had mattered for a long time.

Eventually, he rolled over and sprawled himself across the dirt, staring past the stars. Perhaps The Preeminent wasn’t so bad at replicating touch after all. This was probably just a new trick she’d developed just to torment him in particular. It would make more sense and he’d frankly prefer it that way.

So when he heard the approaching sound of beating wings, felt the ground shake as something large landed nearby and the red ninja stooped into his field of vision, he prayed The Preeminent had gotten  _ very _ creative.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So, this is the first creative prose I’ve written in a while that wasn’t a comic script. I think writing academic essays rotted my brain... so, if you have any critiques please feel free to comment! This fic is just me fulfilling my need to see Morro get a happy ending in the most angsty, fluffy, roundabout way possible. My goal is to post a chapter once a week, and I’ve already written ahead a bit, so I have a buffer. This chapter is shorter than the others are, but I felt this was a good spot to end the introduction.


	2. A Skeleton, a Robot and an Earth Elemental Walk into an Engine Room... You Won’t Believe What Happens Next

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Morro boards the bounty. Cole and Zane have some concerns.

Kai leaned slightly closer to Morro’s skeleton, grimacing.

“Why is this still here? I would’ve thought it blew up with the rest of the mountain...” He groaned, turning on his heel, “I’m not dealing with this”

Morro crossed his arms and glared up at the retreating red ninja.

“Good, I don’t want to deal with _you_ either.”

Kai froze, his posture going rigid and shoulders rising. He let out a high pitched noise and stiffly turned his head to side-eye Morro’s skeleton. He stared.

“What the fuck?” Kai squeaked out.

Morro rolled his nonexistent eyes, which now consisted of two eerily glowing pinpricks of light within his eye sockets.

“What— how— why—“ Kai shook his head and turned fully towards Morro with a well-practiced scowl.

“Tell me why you’re here, Morro.”

Morro looked back to the stars and flipped off the sky.

“Uhhhhhh…” Kai took a step backward, eyes glued to Morro as he reached up to his communicator. “Hey guys, I think I’m gonna need some backup.”

“No just… just get over here. And _don’t bring Lloyd_ … Yeah… it has to do with… the green wannabe. NO NYA, just _come_!”

Kai hung up, gaze still fixed on the skeleton in front of him. Morro is still holding two middle fingers to the night sky and turned his skull to look at Kai. The Preeminent had replicated the fire ninja’s face and voice quite well. If he wasn’t so busy dreading what was coming next he might even be impressed.

Looking suitably unnerved by whatever the hell was happening, Kai stuck a middle finger out at Morro. The skeleton lowered his arms, letting them flop to the ground above his head. He sighed.

“I wasn’t flipping _you_ off, idiot.” Morro gestured limply to the air. “I was aiming for **_you_**. And maybe Cloud Kingdom for good measure.”

“What,” Kai crossed his arms and sat down on a small boulder, shaking his head. “Yeesh. Moody _and_ nonsensical. What’s wrong? Evil ghost plans not working out for ya?”

“I don’t have any plans, Red.”

“Sure you don’t. The others may have fallen for your act back on the Day of the Departed, but I haven’t.”

“Whatever.”

Kai’s glare deepened. “The only reason I bothered flying over here was ‘cause Zane and Nya picked up a, like, massive blast of energy or something. Then I show up and find _you_ hanging around less than a month after we last saw you, and you’re just chilling in your fuckin’ corpse?”

“Chilling?” Morro stands up and turns fully towards the red ninja, waving his arms over his body. “You call _this_ CHILLING?!”

Kai jumps to his feet as Morro marches towards him, falling into a defensive pose.

“You think I’m possessing my corpse for fun? You know damn well what’s going on _‘Kai’_ ,” he air quoted dramatically around the name, “either go back to _normal_ torment or let me _be dead_! This isn’t fucking funny!”

“Just let me go!” Morro screamed. He grabbed Kai by the collar, only to be flipped and slammed into the ground a second later. He didn’t bother standing back up.

“Dude, keep your creepy ghost bones off of me!” Kai spat, igniting his fists.

“Just let me go…” Morro said, “I preferred the eternal drowning over this.”

“What’s that supposed to mean?!”

“Screw this,” Morro muttered, face pressed to the ground, “and screw you.”

This new torture scenario was getting old fast.

“Windbag,” Kai snapped, tightly veiled concern edging into his tone, “what is _that_ supposed to mean?”

“You’re not real, shut up.”

“Oh, I’ll show you how _real_ I am,” Kai grumbles before lifting Morro by his ribs. “You wanna _go_?”

Morro didn’t dignify that with a response. Kai shook him and bared his teeth. “Well?!”

“Fuck you,” the skeleton mumbled. The words held no bite.

Kai held his tongue, inhaling and exhaling deeply before letting out one last sigh and pulling out a length of rope from his pack. He tied Morro up silently and without resistance. 

Morro slumped against a rock and stared into the distance. Kai stood awkwardly nearby, keeping one eye on Morro but otherwise feigning disinterest. Around them, the night air was carried along with the gentle chirping of crickets.

The sound of The Bounty’s thrusters soon entered earshot, growing louder as it neared the two. Soon the roar of the thrusters overpowered all other sounds until the white-hot flames of the ship were above them.

“Kai!” Nya shouted over the engines.

“Over here, sis!” Kai walked over to Morro’s prone form. “Alright Windbag,” the fire ninja said, grabbing Morro’s shoulders and lifting him upright, “no funny stuff. If you even _look_ at Lloyd wrong I'm gonna cremate what’s left of you, bake your ashes into a cake, and feed it to Cole.”

“Be my guest,” Morro mumbled.

A spotlight searched over the landscape before landing on the two, illuminating Kai and Morro in a blinding beam. Kai reflexively moved one hand to shade his eyes. The ship’s rope ladder unfurled to the ground in front of them.

From the ship’s deck, he could already hear Jay working himself into a panic.

“KAI WHAT IS THAT?! Is that Morro’s CORPSE why are you holding it WHY ARE ITS EYES GLOWING?!”

A smacking sound emitted from the deck “Quiet, Jay! Lloyd will hear!” Cole shouted conspicuously.

Morro silently wondered how these people were supposed to be _ninja_. 

Nya was the first to the ground, landing gracefully from the ladder. Cole was next, followed by Jay, who practically flung himself over the edge of the Bounty and was caught by the earth ninja. 

“Where’s Zane?” Kai asked.

“He’s in the kitchen with Lloyd. We didn’t want to leave him alone without knowing what we were dealing with,” Cole raised an eyebrow. “What exactly _are_ we dealing with?”

Jay yelped from Cole’s arms. “Yeah, because this is seriously _freaky_!”

“Morro?” Nya asked, looking pensive.

The skeleton looked directly at Nya at the sound of his name, causing her to startle slightly before regaining her thoughtful expression. He stared at her, the glowing green lights in his sockets shrinking as they scanned her face.

Kai interrupted the tense silence, shaking Morro slightly, causing his bones to clack. “What, windbag, suddenly got nothing to say for yourself?” 

Morro just continued to stare at Nya. She fought her best to keep a neutral expression, shifting on her feet in clear contemplation.

Kai let out a frustrated sigh and addressed his comrades. “He’s giving us the silent treatment now, but trust me, this guy’s Morro.” 

“Is he a Skulkin now or something? Didn’t he move on after the Day of the Departed?” Nya questioned.

Kai scoffs, “Dunno, don’t care. What I want to know is what he’s planning.”

“He’s planning something?” Cole asked, setting Jay down.

“He’s got to be, why else would he be here?” Kai retorted, shaking Morro around for emphasis. “He’s back to do creepy ghost shit!”

“Yeah, creepy ghost shit sounds about right!” Jay concurred, nodding along vigorously .

Cole butt in, placing a hand on Kai’s arm to calm his grip on Morro. “Wait, so you don’t know if he’s planning _anything_?”

“Why else would he be here?!” Kai snapped.

“Because my life is a joke,” Morro grumbled. The group’s attention snaps back to the eerie skeleton Kai’s holding.

“Mood,” Jay squeaks reflexively, voice still strained with anxiety. Nya flicks his forehead.

“Look,” Nya starts, “let’s just get him aboard the Bounty and figure out what to do from there. It’s like, three in the morning.”

“Fine,” Kai says, throwing Morro over his shoulder and grabbing hold of the ladder.

“Wh-we’re just gonna let the guy with wind powers that tried to kill us on our _flying_ ship?! With Lloyd?!” Jay shouts, “This is a bad idea this is going to end so badly I can just tell—“

“Morro seemed chill the last time we saw him,” Cole interrupted, starting to climb the ladder after Kai, “it’s probably fine.”

“ _Probably_?”

Nya pat Jay on the back and nodded an affirmative. “Probably,” she started up the ladder.

The last one on the rocky mountainside, Jay let loose an exasperated groan. He stood for a while with his face in his hands, grumbled unintelligibly, and climbed up after them.

  
  


* * *

  
  


The ninja end up locking Morro in the engine room. It’s unnerving, seeing their ex-enemy so compliant and distant. He hadn’t even complained when Kai unceremoniously dropped him on the floor and left without acknowledging him.

Kai closed the heavy metal door behind him. It locked with a resonant and heavy clang as he turned to face his companions. The scowl he’d been wearing around Morro melted off of his face and left behind a look of exhaustion. 

For a moment the four stood like that, looking completely lost. 

“Welp, I say we go back to bed and deal with this in the morning,” Cole said, clapping his hands together.

Nya groaned, “As much as we’d all love to sleep right now, I don’t think that’s a great idea. We’d be getting up in an hour or two anyway and this is kinda serious.”

“We need to figure out how he’s related to the energy blast. He’s gotta be up to _something_.” Kai says.

“It wasn’t an ‘energy blast’, Kai,” Nya placed a hand to her forehead. She could already feel the headache forming, “it was a ripple of the trans-dimensional—“

“Energy blast,” Kai doubles down.

“ _Ughhh_.”

While the siblings argued, Jay creaked open the engine room door to peep on Morro. The skeleton was still quietly laying on the floor where Kai had dropped him and was staring at the wall. Jay frowned and tapped Cole on the shoulder to get his attention. He pointed inside the room, jerking his hand for emphasis and gesturing into the room with his eyes. Cole raised an eyebrow and peered inside.

Jay heard Cole suck in a breath, “He’s not okay.”

Jay nodded frantically, “Yeah! I know right? He seems real— Cole!”

Cole was already walking over to Morro.

“Cole!” Kai and Nya shout in unison.

Zane appears next to them, “Cole?”

“Gah!” Jay shrieked in alarm. Little sparks jittered across his skin.

“I noticed you had returned to the ship. What is the situation?” 

“Where’s Lloyd?” Kai asks firmly, lowering his voice and glancing around the hallway.

“He remained in the kitchen. I assume whatever is happening is a sensitive matter.”

Jay starts rambling, “Morro’s back and he’s a skeleton and we don't know what’s going on and—“ 

Nya placed a hand on Jay’s shoulder “And we’re figuring out how to handle this.”

“I… see, ” Zane tilted his head to glance around the group and into the room Cole had left wide open. “And what is Cole doing?”

The group’s attention snapped back to the ninja in question, who was kneeling on the floor next to Morro with his back to the door.

They all squeezed into the room and crowded behind Cole. They clamored behind him, blurting out a cacophony of questions and concerns which he pointedly ignored. Cole hushed them with a serious expression and waited for them to calm before turning back to the skeleton.

“You okay, dude?” He asked.

Morro remained on the floor, staring at the wall. Cole gently reached out and placed a hand on his shoulder, but Morro remained unresponsive.

“Heh, I guess he’s playing dead— ah! ” Nya elbowed Jay in the ribs and Cole shot him a glare. 

“Yeah, he’s being real tight-lipped about whatever he came here for,” Kai grumbled.

“He doesn’t have lips though Kai— _ow_!”

Zane drifted closer to Cole’s side, looking troubled. He kneeled beside him and gave him a meaningful look. Cole searched Zane’s face for a moment before his eyes lit with understanding. 

“You think?” Cole asked, his worried face matching Zane’s own.

Zane nodded solemnly and turned his head to the group still crowded around.

“Perhaps the rest of you should check up on Lloyd. Cole and I will remain here with Morro.”

Jay let out a nervous laugh, “Yeah, that's a good idea I should go, ” he practically sprints down the hall.

Nya scrutinized Cole and Zane before relaxing slightly and asking “You guys will be alright?”

“Yeah, Nya, it’s cool.” Cole waved his hand dismissively.

“Come on, let’s go check Lloyd.” Nya led a reluctant Kai out of the cabin and closed the door behind them, Kai’s eyes refusing to stray from them until the moment the door shut entirely.

Immediately, Cole saw Morro’s green eye-lights flick from the wall to the door and back to the wall, the first sign of lucidity he'd seen from the skeleton since they got him on the Bounty. Cole went from kneeling to sitting, and Zane followed his lead.

“Is this better?” Zane inquired, his voice smooth and calm.

“Sorry if Kai was a bit… hostile, ” Cole said, “and Jay can be a little… overwhelming. Are you okay with just us talking to you? Or do you want someone else?”

“We can wait outside if you need some time alone, ” Zane added as he quirked his head to the side.

Morro’s hollow stare towards the wall changed to a serious, even calculating, one. He stayed like that for minutes, eyes darting erratically as he weighed his options. The ninja next to him waited quietly.

“Does it matter?” He finally muttered.

“Of course it does. You appear to have gone through some very emotional experiences tonight. Although we were once enemies, that does not excuse any mistreatment you would endure.”

Zane’s words seemed to trigger something and spurred Morro to sit upright. He gawked at the ninja next to him, his jaw opening and closing as he clearly wrestled with his thoughts. Cole scooted back awkwardly to give him some space.

Morro’s radioactive green eye-lights abruptly widened in realization. His jaw hung open slightly before clamping shut. He looked between the two ninja, his body language caving into something timider. Even as a skeleton, Cole noted, embarrassment was a strange look on Morro.

“What’s Wu’s favorite tea?” Morro asked in a hesitant whisper.

“HumiliTea, ” Zane and Cole deadpan simultaneously.

“Shit, ” Morro hung his head for a moment, before throwing himself into a fit of hysterical laughter. “Of course. Of _course_ ,” he chuckled, made eye contact with the ninja, and broke back down into raucous laughter. He clatters face-down on the floor, still tied up and resembling a bony, spasming caterpillar.

“Uhh…” Cole starts, eyebrows wrinkling in bafflement.

“Of _course_ I thought this was _Her_ ! But she’s dead!” Morrow laughs, “I want it to be her! Torture would be so much simpler! But no, this world isn't done chewing me up and spitting me out, is it?” he cries into the floor, “is The Departed Realm _allergic_ to me? Did I _offend_ it somehow?!” Even without lungs, he appeared to be hyperventilating.

“Hey, hey, you’re safe, ” Cole said, wincing at the volume Morro was yelling, and praying the noise didn't carry too far through the Bounty. “Zane, help me untie these.”

The two quickly moved to untie Morro, who brought his hands up to his face the moment he was able. He tightly gripped the sides of his skull, black and green hair poking out wildly.

“I can’t do this again, ” Morro chuckled, “I suck at it, I can’t do it.”

“What do you mean?” Zane asked gently as he slid the rope away from the group.

“Living!” Morrow exclaimed, “Or whatever you call _this_!” he motioned to the body he was in.

“Hey, ” Cole assured, “you’re here, you exist! You’re plenty alive!”

“I don't want to be!”

Cole snapped, lunging to his feet. “Don’t say that! Don't you _dare_ say that!”

“Cole, ” Zane stood up between the two black-haired men, holding his hands up placatingly and urging Cole to sit back down.

“Zane! Don't you hear what he’s saying?!” Cole stilled as Zane shot him a look. “Right… right, sorry. I lost my cool there.”

“I understand, Cole. Thank you.”

Zane went back to sitting as Cole huffed back down with him. The nindroid placed a hand over his friend’s, squeezing it gently. When he was sure Cole was ready, he turned back to the glowering skeleton.

“I understand that this is an upsetting situation, Morro, ” Morro scoffed at Zane’s words, “but you seem to assume you need to go through this alone, or not at all. We can help you. We can help you make this into a real second chance.”

Morro looked skeptically at the ice ninja, seeming almost offended. “Why would you want to do that?”

“Why wouldn't we?” Cole replied simply.

“Are you both _stupid_ ?” Morro snapped, “I tried to kill you, I tried to kill _everyone_ ! I don't _deserve_ your do-gooder act. Go save a starving orphan or something! I should be dead!” His voice rose sharply. “I hurt you! I hurt the…” he looks down, “green ninja…”

“Then apologize! Make amends, do something good!” Cole let out, “We’ve seen plenty of evil dudes before, and not all of them feel bad about what they did. If anyone understands redemption it's Lloyd! His dad was an evil warlord for crying out loud!”

“I cannot speak for the others, but I will give you a chance if you're willing to extend the same courtesy in return,” Zane said.

Morro grimaced, “You people are insane.”

Cole looked slightly affronted, but Zane just chuckled lightheartedly, waving his free hand. “I’m well-informed of how strange we are. I wouldn't have it any other way.”

“You're just as weird, dude, ” Cole asserted, pointing at Morro.

“Whatever.”

A metallic knock at the engine room door caused Morro to jump slightly. He settled back down just as suddenly, looking pointedly at the floor and crossing his arms. The tension doesn't leave his bones, though.

“How’s it going in there, guys?” Nya’s voice is muffled by the door, “You’ve been getting pretty loud.” Zane couldn’t help but notice the fear that flashed in the light of Morro’s eye sockets when he heard her.

“We’re good!” Cole responded, “Just need some cooldown time, I think.”

“I concur, rest would do all of us a service.”

“So I can leave?” Morro asks.

“Well—“ Zane starts but is interrupted by Cole’s firm voice.

“No.”

Zane raises his eyebrows at his companion. “Cole, he’s not our prisoner. We can’t keep him here against his will.”

“Uh, _yeah we can_ . The dude _is_ technically a criminal but more importantly,” Cole pauses, throws Morro a glance, and whispers into Zane’s ear, “what if he hurts himself?”

Zane looks at Cole with wide eyes. He hadn’t considered that but… Cole had a point. Realistically Morro should be checked into the nearest inpatient program and kept under close watch, but these were... far from normal circumstances. Morro had displayed several red-flags already. He was probably more dangerous to himself than any of them.

“Uh, ‘more importantly’ _what_? What are you whispering about?” 

“It’s… something we can discuss with you later, Morro,” Zane says softly, “for now we will set you up with a futon and some fresh clothes. Please try to rest. We can talk about this once everyone has slept on last night’s events.”

“So can I come in or not?” They hear Nya ask from behind the door.

Cole stood up and walked over to the entrance, opening the door a crack and sliding himself through into the hallway. Nya looked unimpressed and disheveled. He closed the door behind him, cringing slightly and rubbing the back of his neck awkwardly as he turned back to face the water ninja. She rose one eyebrow, an obvious invitation for Cole to explain himself.

Cole sighs deeply. “Look, Morro’s having a rough time and he doesn't seem aggressive, ” Cole lowers his voice to a whisper and leads her down the hallway, “and I think he might be… scared of you.”

“What? Why would he be scared of me?”

Cole gives her a look, “I mean, you _kinda_ were the one that killed him in Stixx.”

“Oh, ” Nya looks sheepish, “right. That makes sense, ” she took a long pause as they walked towards the sleeping quarters before mumbling. “He totally deserved it though.”

“Totally.” Cole agreed.

Back in the engine room, Zane and Morro sat in apprehensive quiet. The only noises breaking the silence were the roaring and occasional pings coming from the expanding metal of the engine, and the wooden creaking of the vessel around them. Morrow still wasn't making eye contact.

“Would you like a hug?” Zane asked.

“... **No**.”  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I made a lil drawing of skeleton Morro for this chapter! Hope you enjoyed! Once again comments are massively appreciated!


	3. Lloyd has a Bad Night

Lloyd had a nagging feeling that something was very wrong. First, Nya got a call from Kai. Whatever she heard on the other end made her visibly nervous and her eyes kept sneaking glances at him. Shortly before reaching their destination, Nya went through a painfully transparent ploy to get him to stay in the kitchen with Zane. She’d handed him a bulky device and said he needed to stay and watch the charts for more abnormal energy readings.  _ Yeah right _ .

Zane hangs back with him, presumably to keep him in the room while the others dealt with whatever they’d come here for. In the meantime, Zane began to set up a snowman-themed chessboard that Kai got him for the holidays. It wasn’t his fanciest board by a long-shot, but he arranged the plastic pieces like they were precious relics.

Jay shrieked in alarm without warning. Zane had to grab Lloyd to prevent him from running out on deck to help.

“KAI WHAT THE HELL IS THAT?! Is that—“

The sound of Jay’s shouting was cut off by Zane humming at a volume humans could never hope to replicate. He continued arranging the pawns like nothing was happening. That had settled it. His older siblings were hiding something from him and were failing horribly at being even slightly inconspicuous. Instead of calling them out then and there, Lloyd just sighed and took a seat at the table.

The longer they sat in the helm, trying to make casual conversation over their chess game, the more outwardly anxious Zane became. Eventually, he stood from the table after checking Lloyd’s king and walked stiffly to the door.

“I’ll be back soon, I'm just going to go check on the others.”

“Sure, sure,” Lloyd replied casually.

When Kai, Jay, and Nya entered the room a few minutes later with strained smiles, greeting him casually as if nothing had happened, Lloyd decided to inquire.

“So uh, what happened, guys?” He asked lightly, standing from the table as he finished resetting the chessboard.

Jay’s smile shattered immediately, his face pulled back with anxiety. Kai and Nya looked at each other, clearly having some manner of telepathic sibling debate with their eyes. Kai gave his sister a devastating glare, which apparently won him the battle.

Nya sighed, “Why don't we do this when we’ve all gotten some rest? We can talk about stuff back at the new temple.”

“Stuff, ” Lloyd said flatly.

“Yeah, ” Jay laughed nervously, “stuff! Normal stuff!”

Lloyd gave them a flat look and began to walk to the door. Kai, unsurprisingly, stepped in his path.

“Yeah, no. We said we’ll deal with it later, so we’ll deal with it later. How about we all go back to bed and get some sleep?” Kai said, placing his hands on his little brother’s shoulders and looking directly at him. “Please, Lloyd.”

“Agh,  _ fine _ !” Lloyd pushed past Kai and opened the door, “You don’t have to  _ baby  _ me.” He added under his breath.

The four walked back to their bunks. Lloyd watched with irritation the whole walk there as Kai refused to let Lloyd out of his sight. This was seriously getting on his nerves, but more than that, it was making him dread whatever they were hiding. His family hadn’t been inclined to hide much of anything from him in a long time. Why they suddenly decided to treat him like a kid now, he didn’t know. The imaginary scenarios running through his brain certainly weren’t helping.

When they made it back to their beds Lloyd had to carefully step around the boxes of personal belongings strewn about the cabin. Moving all your stuff to a floating island wasn’t exactly the simplest process.

While Kai, Jay and he tucked in, Nya hovered near the door, focused on something down the hallway. Lloyd looked at her curiously before hearing muffled voices echoing through the Bounty’s halls. He could barely make out a few words.

“I… kill you……... _ everyone _ ! ……………..I should be dead! …...hurt you! I hurt the…”

Lloyd’s heart simultaneously jumped into his throat and dropped to his feet when he placed the voice. He could never forget that voice, especially with it haunting his nightmares as it often did.

“I’m… gonna go check up on them,” Nya scurried down the hall.

Lloyd stayed frozen in his bed, staring blindly at the ceiling. He clutched his sheets as he felt an icy cold heat overcome his limbs. Sweat rushed out of every pore. He couldn’t breathe. He couldn’t think. All he could do was listen to his heart palpitate with dread.

Suddenly, everyone’s concern for him made so much sense.

Kai and Jay must not have heard anything, as they were preoccupied trying to find a comfortable sleeping position. Both of them seemed too anxious to settle down.

So Lloyd lay in his bed and let his mind reel with even grimmer imaginary scenarios than he’d dreamt up earlier. He never wanted to see Morro again. How was he back? Did he come back for him, to try and become the green ninja again? Did he want revenge? He’d seemed nicer back on the Day of the Departed, but what if it was a ruse? Lloyd had been betrayed by enough snakes in the past. He wouldn't put it past the wind ninja to try something like that.

Lloyd remained silent and petrified in his bunk. Distantly, he felt tears running down his cheeks. He turned his face to the wall and pulled the covers over his head.

When his tears finally dried up, he noted that the other bunks in the room had filled with sleeping ninja, sans Zane who still hadn’t returned. He couldn't help his curiosity. The suspense was going to kill him if he didn’t do something about this right now.

Lloyd steeled himself and crept out of his bed with a careful grace that only a trained ninja could manage. This wasn't the Bounty to him anymore, this was enemy territory. He skipped around the moving boxes silently. He lifted the door in its frame before slowly inching it open. He’d learned early on in his Darkly days that doors creaked less if you held them up while they pivoted.

In the hallway, he snuck along the wall, keeping his feet flat and close to the walls where the boards would creak less. Now that he thought about it, Darkly’s had possibly taught him more about stealth than Uncle Wu had.

He peeked around a bend in the hallway but quickly ducked back when he saw that a very awake Zane was sitting against the wall beside the engine room door. Of course, the one member of his family with biosignature scanners and heat vision was the only one awake. At least Zane was safe. Slowly, quietly, Lloyd poked his eyes back down the hall to get a better look.

Zane was now staring straight at him. The android jumped to his feet, suddenly alert.

“Ah, Llo—“ Zane’s eyes flickered to the door, “brother. Did you need something?”

Lloyd sighed heavily, stepping out into the open. “You can drop the act, I know… I know who’s in there.”

“I see…”

Zane stepped over to Lloyd and took his brother's hands in his own. His voice was set at a low volume.

“How do you feel?” he asked.

Lloyd opened his mouth, trying to find the right words, before grimacing and looking at the ground. Zane remained blessedly quiet, giving him time to think.

“Scared, I guess, but also…” he takes his hands back and grips his own arms. “guilty? For feeling scared? The last time we saw him he seemed so different and I…” he trailed off, face paling as he tightened his grip. “I  _ know _ he’s not going to do that again. I  _ know _ if he’s here we should give him a chance but… every time I think about him I feel sick.” Lloyd forced down a gulp.

Zane’s hand pushed tears from Lloyd’s eyes that he hadn't even noticed were there.

“Your feelings are a completely normal and understandable response. Though, I do agree that he deserves another chance. He… it would be better to hear it from him, but he did express remorse for his actions.”

Lloyd nodded, still not feeling capable of looking Zane in the eyes. “And he’s… in there?”

“He’s resting, ” Zane explained, “he seems to have been through quite an ordeal to return to this realm; an ordeal that appears to have happened against his will.”

“He doesn't  _ want _ to be here?”

“No, most certainly not.”

That bit of information sent a queasy wave rolling through his stomach. He didn't like to think about his time under Morro’s possession, but it had provided a lot of insight into the ghost’s memories and emotions. With their minds fused together for so long, Lloyd knew how much Morro hated being controlled, and how much more he hated feeling trapped. He’d shared his fear of the Preeminent, the gales of betrayal and hatred and  _ fear _ that rushed through him when he thought of Wu.

_ Morro doesn't want to be here _ . Lloyd let the phantom-emotion rush over him. He’s trapped. Morro is trapped. 

“—oyd? Lloyd!”

Zane was on the floor with him, looking concerned and rubbing his back as his lungs burned with the stress of hyperventilation.

“Lloyd, breathe with me. In… out… in… there you go.”

Lloyd swallowed thickly and leaned into his older brother’s shoulder. “Thanks, Zane, ” he said, voice cracking slightly.

“Let’s get you some water.” Zane stood up and helped Lloyd to his feet, helping him walk down the hallway. He paused at the bedroom door, opened it, and knocked lightly on the frame.

He heard a startled gasp from Jay’s bunk and watched the freckled ninja whip his eyes to the door. His shoulders sagged with relief when he saw his brothers in the doorway. Zane pointed at Jay, then both of his eyes, and then pointed down the hallway. Jay withered slightly but nodded and began tip-toeing through the bedroom and down the hall.

Lloyd spent the rest of the early morning with Zane there to comfort him and spoil his sweet tooth with an excessive amount of cinnamon rolls.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Thank you for reading! This chapter was a little bit shorter, but I felt it was necessary for the pacing to be how I imagined it. We’ll be back to Morro’s perspective next chapter!


	4. Green meets Green

Morro turned over in his futon for the umpteenth time. How was he expected to fall asleep like this? He didn’t even know if he was capable of that in this body; the loud purr of the engine wasn’t improving matters.

Zane had lent him a thick, baby blue hoodie and a pair of gray sweatpants. They currently sat on the floor next to him. He wasn't ready to put them on yet. The ninja were already showing him an obscene amount of hospitality; he didn't need one more debt for them to dangle over his head later. His pride was already damaged enough by the soft bedding they’d offered.

So he lay there, wide awake when the scent of cinnamon and sugar wafted around the room. He realized with a start that he could smell things. He hadn’t smelled anything this wonderful in a long while. Why would he ever think The Preeminent could have replicated something so sweet. The ninja were likely awake and having breakfast about now.

If he had it his way he would lay here under the futon’s overstuffed covers for at least the next decade. He’d gladly spend the rest of his strange afterlife curled up in an engine room. It was warm, he had a blanket. This was pretty much as good as it got.

A metallic knock sounded from the door. Just his luck. Morrow grumbled something unintelligible to himself and curled the sheets around him into a tight cocoon. He heard the door squeak open, followed by the blue ninja.

“So uh, Lloyd— er, the green ninja knows you're here.”

Morro grumbled, “I  _ know  _ his name.”

“Oh, right! Well… uh…” He heard the lightning ninja’s feet shuffle in place, “I think we’re ready to talk now. So…”

Screw this. He wasn't ready for this. He wasn't ready to see that kid again. Morro rolled over in his cocoon away from the door, hoping Blue would get the message.

“Come on man!” the ninja whined, “Are you gonna make me carry you? Please don't make me carry you. Cole’s gonna eat all the cinnamon buns at this rate! Zane hasn’t made them in forever!”

“Too bad, don’t care.”

The master of lightning exhaled an indignant groan before stepping over to Morro’s side.

“I’m gonna pick you up!”

“...”

“Last warning! I’m gonna do it!”

Morro didn't bother dignifying that with a response and instead rolled over onto his face.

“O-Okay! I warned you!”

Morro feels his cocoon get lifted into Jay’s arms and tossed over one shoulder. The sudden movement caused his bones to clack around disconcertingly. He was never going to get used to that sound. He felt the ninja carrying him down the hall with an exaggerated bounce in his step. It was infuriating.

“Wow, you’re light! Guess I should have expected that, haha. Not a lot of meat on your bones! Eh ha…” Jay trails off awkwardly, “sorry, I'm stupid. Ignore me.”

“I already am.”

“Hey!” Jay snapped, offended.

The sound of lighthearted conversation fluttered through the halls ahead. They’re getting closer by the second. When Morro heard the sound of laughter bombard his skull, he knew he was  _ not  _ ready for this. All these cheerful people enjoying their morning together; he didn't deserve to be on the same planet as them, let alone in the same room. He didn't need to ruin anything else.

Jay came to a halt and the laughter instantly stopped.

“Uhhh… Jay? Is he in there?” a deep voice asked.

“Yep.”

“Why?”

“I dunno. He was already wrapped up when I came to get him and since he wouldn't get up I brought him back here! I didn't want you to eat everything before I got back!” 

Morro felt himself be dropped onto what he assumed was a couch.

“Now hand over my buns!”

“Jay! What the heck!”

Morro listened to them scrabble around as a pair of footsteps approached him. A weight fell beside him on the couch.

“How are you feeling?” a quiet voice asked. It’s the robot from last night.

“Terrible.”

He heard a tight chuckle.

“At least you’re being honest. We’re all ready to talk, whenever you are.”

Morro curled in on himself. Is this what he’d become? Some sniveling coward hiding from a  _ conversation _ ? He really was a failure. His pride was wounded enough, he couldn't run away from this too.

He sighed and wriggled into an upright position, keeping the comforter clenched around him and allowing his eyes to peek out through a small opening. Zane sat on the couch next to him, looking genuinely pleased with the minimal effort Morro had exerted. 

“Stop acting so dramatic,” he heard the fire ninja grumble from the kitchenette. The eye-roll was practically audible.

Zane glared across the room and Morro followed his gaze. Kai and the rest of the ninja were gathered around a tray of cinnamon buns. Both the earth and lightning ninja had sugary glaze dripping from their hair, and a bun splattered on the floor between them. Nya had her head in her hands, Kai was predictably glaring directly into Morro’s eye sockets, and…

Morro’s gaze froze on Lloyd. Lloyd stared back. Abruptly, he felt very ready to throw away his pride and book it. He couldn't talk to this kid. Lloyd looked pale and ready to run, as if Morro would jump out of his cocoon and possess him again. Morro supposed that  _ was  _ the reaction he deserved. He gritted his teeth.

“Hi, ” he heard himself blurt out lamely, “I’m Morro. But you knew that.”

He wanted to die a third time right now.

“Hey,” the green ninja squeaked out.

For a while, the two simply stared at each other in tense silence. Morro hated how the kid made him feel. He’d glimpsed flickers of memories when he took over Lloyd’s body. He’d felt the kid fighting against his control every step of the way. Possession was horribly disorienting with such a strong-willed victim. You were both yourself and someone else all at once, experiencing their thoughts and feelings in tandem with your own. It was rare, but at times it was difficult to distinguish where they ended and you began. You were still in control of their body, but “you” became a more nebulous concept the longer you were sharing a body. He wondered what Lloyd had felt back then. Was it just as disorienting when it ended? Did he see Morro’s memories too? He desperately hoped not.

“Are- are you still a ghost? How did you get here?” Lloyd finally asked.

“You didn’t tell him?” Morrow straightened, glancing around at the other ninja. “No, I’m in a body.”

He immediately realized how that must have sounded as Lloyd’s eyes widened in horror. Kai and Nya looked positively murderous. He scrambled for the right words to fix this.

“Not like that! It's  _ my  _ body,” Morro blurted out.

Lloyd’s eyes scrunched up in confusion but he still looked on the verge of a panic attack. Morro figured he’d just get it over with and alleviate the kid's fears, so he begrudgingly pulled the comforter down to his neck. For some reason, Lloyd gaped in horror.

“See, ” Morro started, trying to patch up the miscommunication, “no possession. It's fine.”

“Are you okay?!”

Morro’s thoughts cut into a static of utter confusion. Why… would he ask that? He had his own body, what was there to worry about? Sure, it felt absolutely horrible and he’d actually prefer possessing anyone else’s living body than his own, but he couldn’t possess anyone, he wasn’t hurting anyone. He’d even settle for just sitting in someone’s mental passenger seat right now and just leave them in control. If that meant he could leave this corpse, he’d take it.

Oh, right… These ninja are disgustingly compassionate. No one would like being stuck in a skeletal body. Still didn’t explain why they’d care about him.

“Don’t waste your sympathy on me, kid.”

“It's not wasted.” Zane asserted.

Morro rolled his eyes at no one in particular. “Why are you all so nice? It makes it annoyingly difficult to wallow in misery.”

Kai scoffed, “ _ All  _ of us are nice?”

“Did I fucking stutter? I did some horrible shit and you haven’t even tried to mash my bones into a fine powder yet so, yeah, you’re  _ all  _ being too nice.”

Zane spoke up again, an infuriating angel on his shoulder. “Everyone deserves kindness, Morro.”

Morro leaped from the couch and turned on Zane, plush comforter billowing around him as his skeletal feet clicked against the wooden floor.

“I. Don’t,” Morro says sharply.

“Shut up.” Cole marched across the small room and gripped onto one of his skeletal shoulders with carefully controlled strength. “I’m pissed at you, Morro. I don't know if I’ll  _ ever _ forgive you for the shit I went through, ” he turned Morro around to look him directly in the eye.

“Cole—“ Zane started.

“Give me a second.” Cole interrupted before turning his gaze back to the skeleton in his grip. “You put all of us through so much. You hurt me personally in a way I didn't even  _ know  _ I could be hurt, ” Cole’s grip on Morro’s shoulders eased ever so slightly. “But that doesn't mean you don't deserve kindness or happiness. Idiot.”

Cole stood there, cinnamon bun glaze still dripping from his hair while his face remained hardened and resolute in a way befitting his element. Morro stood there, frozen and completely lost for words when he felt Zane carefully pry Cole’s hands from his shoulders.

Jay abandoned his precious cinnamon buns to comfort Cole. The earth ninja’s eyes were glassy with unshed emotions. Morro didn’t know how he was supposed to feel. Whatever he was feeling, it felt horrible. He couldn’t distinguish in exactly what quantities his self-loathing, self-pity, guilt, hopelessness, and nausea had mixed together into this particular emotional ipecac.

“Look,” He started, rubbing at his humerus before cringing at the hard texture and retracting his hand. “I’m clearly not helping anyone by being here. I had my shot at living and I messed up, so…” he looks over to Kai, “does that cremation offer still stand?”

“The  _ what _ ,” Nya deadpanned.

Kai looked uncharacteristically uncomfortable for a moment before he slipped into a teasing grin. “You know what, as much as I’d  _ love _ to incinerate you, I’m getting the feeling that letting you live’s an even better punishment.”

Against his better judgment, Morro felt his mouth tighten into a skeletal grin as he let out a morose chuckle. “You’re not wrong.”

“No one is incinerating  _ anyone _ .” Lloyd snapped. The stool he’d been sitting in clattered to the floor.

Morro turned his attention to the green ninja, the person who should hate him more than anyone else, period. Whatever he was about to say died in his mouth when he witnessed the furious expression on the teen’s face. He was quivering on his feet. The fact the kid hadn’t fainted the moment he stood up was a testament to his willpower.

“I know what you’re doing, Morro. Knock. It. Off,” Lloyd spat. 

“I don’t know what you’re talking about, Green.”

Lloyd let out an exasperated, angry sigh and mumbled, “Of  _ course  _ you don’t know,” He smacked his forehead, “You’re so thick-skulled. Of  _ course, _ you don’t see what you’re doing right now.”

“Heh, ‘thick-skulled’,” Jay blurts out. 

“That came out wrong,” Lloyd paused and scanned the room. “Can I talk to him? Alone.”

“Fuck no!” Kai and Morro shouted in unison. Their eyes met.

“Well, I want to talk to him without everyone here trying to coddle me. I can protect myself, Kai.”

Zane stepped back into the conversation from where he was handing Cole a cup of chamomile tea. “We’re about to arrive at Master Yang’s temple. Perhaps it would be best if we gathered our thoughts and reconvened once everyone has had time to breathe.”

Nya watched Jay, anticipating a comment about lungs and skeletons, but he wisely held his tongue. She sighed and left the room, telling everyone she was going to take the Bounty out of autopilot and dock it. Jay gave Cole one last reassuring pat and whispered something to him before scurrying along after her.

The second Nya was out of sight, Morro felt the suffocating feeling in his ribcage assuage just a bit. He’d never admit it, but the woman still sent him into a mortal panic whenever she was around. He could still feel the water rushing over him when he looked at her. Zane, the ever-caring thorn in his side must have sensed his anxiety, because he was once again looking at Morro with those aggravatingly gentle eyes.

Lloyd’s lip was trembling with barely bottled emotion. He stomped over to the door before turning on his heel and jabbing a finger towards Morro.

“We’re not done.”

He leaves, Kai following after him closely and slamming the door behind them.

For one wonderful moment, with four fewer people in the room, Morro felt nothing but relief. The next second, his relief was washed away by a wave of self-loathing. He’d just screwed this up more than he thought possible, hadn’t he?

He should have expected this, really. He’s poison. He always has been. This perfect little family full of elemental masters that Wu chose over him, that was infinitely  _ better _ than him, was in turmoil because he’d been around for less than a day. What was  _ wrong _ with him?

“What am I supposed to  _ do _ ?” He heard himself choke out, “I need someone to tell me what to  _ do _ . I can’t  _ fix this _ .”

“You could start with apologizing to everyone,” Cole stated flatly.

Morro jolted in his seat. He’d forgotten the earth and ice ninja were still there. He pulled the comforter over his head and let loose a loud, muffled groan. This was it, he was stuck in a corpse surrounded by all the people he’d hurt, and he didn’t have a shred of pride left to his name.

“Why didn’t I think of that?” He asked honestly.

“We all got rather caught up in the moment,” Zane says, “and we didn’t give you time to think about what you intended to say…”

“I probably didn’t help either,” Cole adds, sipping his tea, “I kinda blew up on you.”

Morro snorts, “I’ve been through worse than that, Rocky. I deserved everything you said… well, except the part about deserving happiness,” he lowers the comforter just so he can show them he’s rolling his socket-lights.

“Oh shut up,” Cole retorts, rolling his own eyes before a question flashes in his eyes. “Say, I meant to bring it up earlier but, why haven’t you just ditched the body? You seemed comfortable enough as a ghost…”

Morro grimaced, “I tried, I can’t,” he shrugged it off.

“What?!” Cole choked on his tea.

“You can’t?” Zane asked.

“Trust me, I  _ tried _ , but it hurts every time. It makes my… bones feel like they’re going to burst open,” he shivers at the memory before recalling another pressing detail.

“I…” Morro started, “I can’t use my elemental powers either.”

Zane and Cole looked at each other, then back to Morro. The concern on Zane’s face somehow deepened.

“In our experience, elemental powers aren’t tied to the body, but the soul,” the nindroid said softly, “Even when I was uploaded into a new body, when Cole was a ghost, when  _ you _ were a ghost, our elemental powers remained. I don’t understand why this time would be any different…”

“Maybe my powers finally went to someone who deserves them.”

Zane looked like he was about to chastise Morro when Cole butt in instead. “We’ll figure it out, dude. We always do.”

Morro let out a vestigial sigh, leaning back into the unfamiliar comfort of the plush couch and staring at the ceiling.

Despite himself, he almost believed them. 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I’ve been having so much fun writing this. Every single comment I get absolutely makes my day. Also, if you have any criticism/critiques please don’t be shy about posting them. This is my first fic, after all, and if there’s a way my writing could improve I want to know!


	5. A Cold Breeze

Morro pressed himself further into the couch cushions. The nindroid and earth ninja had remained blissfully quiet as he eyed the knotted wood-grain of the ceiling. 

He’d given these people every opportunity to get rid of him. The suspense of it all set him on edge. He’d rather they just got it over with and threw him overboard or told him to leave. He couldn't get too comfortable until they finally did. It was only a matter of time until he was back on his own, the way things were supposed to be.

“Morro, ” Zane snapped him out of his rumination.

“Hm?”

“Why aren't you wearing the clothes I gave you? Did they not fit?”

“I dunno. I didn't try them on, ” Morro shrugs, “It’s not like it matters. I don't have any skin to cover up.”

Cole snorted into his mug. “What, so Zane should walk around naked too?”

“No! That's not what I— That’s different and you know it.”

“How so?” Zane tilted his head and looked at Morro expectantly. A tiny, knowing grin tugged at his face.

“It just is!”

“I dunno Zane, ” Cole smirked, muttering in a phony conspiratorial tone. “maybe he secretly  _ wants _ to walk around naked.”

“Fine! I’ll go put on your damned clothes!” Morro snapped, standing up and shuffling to the hallway. His bones heated with embarrassment as Cole laughed behind him. Even Zane chuckled lightly.

He walked through the empty hallway, the airship humming around him and his feet clacking noisily against the floor with every step. The comforter was still pulled over his shoulders like an oversized cape, dragging along behind him.

The door to the engine room was still wide open from Jay’s rude awakening earlier. He trudged over to the pile of neatly folded clothes Zane had left next to the futon. He grimaced at how clean they were.

He let the comforter fall to the ground and looked down at himself. He hadn’t really looked at his body this entire time. His bones were picked clean, but rather than a pearly white they were tarnished and yellowed with age. Scattered about his bones were patches of slimy green cave moss that mostly clung between his joints.

He began the task of removing his rotting cloak, grimacing at the overpowering smell of mildew that clung to it. Several times chunks of fabric sloughed off and splattered to the floor. To his disgust, even when he removed the main chunk of the garment, small pieces of the moldy green fabric clung to his ribcage. One by one, he peeled them off and dropped them into the revolting pile at his feet.

Morro grunted with distaste at the sight of his naked body. It was still coated in growths of moss and mold, and the view of his hollow ribcage was… disconcerting to put it lightly. He couldn’t keep looking at it. The sight made him ill with an unexpected undercurrent of claustrophobia.

He reached down for the pristine clothes, only to pause at the sight of his unwashed, bony hand. It was just as disgusting as the rest of him. He tugged it back towards his body and cringed. He couldn’t help but picture the mold from his bones seeping through the pastel blue and cloud-gray of Zane’s neatly folded clothes. He couldn’t put those on like this. He’d need to give them back eventually.

Morro searched the engine room until he found what he was searching for: a pile of relatively clean rags, essential for any engineer. He grabbed the least oily one he could find and got to work on scrubbing his bones.

The arms were simple enough, and he even managed to clean up his legs as well before needing to switch to a fresh cloth. He started on his torso. 

He hated that he could still feel touch. He’d much rather not know what it felt like to scrub your own spine clean. He could feel the persistent lump in his hypothetical throat grow every time he quickly glanced down to check his work. For the most part, he kept his eyes fixed on the ceiling through the entire process, his mind desperately trying to focus on anything else.

Finally, he decided the bones were clean enough to wear the borrowed clothes. Absently, he noticed his hands were trembling. He clenched them tight and tucked them under his arms, flinching away when they touched his ribs. He’s never wanted to escape his own body so much. Maybe it would work this time. Maybe he  _ could _ escape.

Desperately, he tried to eject his soul from the cage of bones he found himself in. Morro, overcome with a burning pain, yelped pitifully and clattered to his knees. Just as he should have expected. He’d failed again.

He slammed his fists into the floorboards, crying out in frustration. He couldn’t do this. He just couldn’t do this.

“Fucking useless corpse!” He howled, beating the floor. His bones rattled with the recoil of each blow.

He kept punching the ground, bones trembling. He paused for just a moment to wind up another swing when he heard a clanging knock at the door, the sound of metal on metal. He froze, panting deeply with absent lungs.

“Do you… require assistance?” Zane asked through the door.

Morro slowly lowered his fist, realizing how loud he must have been. Hot shame flooded his skull.

“No. I’m fine,” he’d meant to sound reassuring, but his words came out impatient and clipped.

“... I’ll… be nearby if you need anything.”

“Whatever.”

Morro waited for the sound of receding footsteps before hauling himself over to the borrowed clothes and throwing them on. He hated to admit how nice it felt to be wearing real clothes again. It made him feel more like a real person... even if the sleeves were a touch too long for his arms and the sweatpants hung too low. At least with such long sleeves, he was able to cover up his hands so he couldn't see them. Morro made a mental note to acquire gloves as soon as possible.

He yanked the hood over his head and stepped into the hallway. Apparently when the nindroid has said he’d “be nearby” he meant approximately one meter away from the door.

Morro rolled his eyes, stuffing his hands into the hoodie’s kangaroo pocket and strolling past Zane.

“I’m fine,” he interrupted before Zane could say anything.

“We’re docked at the temple if you’ll come with me.”

Morro let out a sigh, but nodded and allowed Zane to lead him up on deck. Cole was no longer on the couch as they passed through the living area to the stairs. Halfway up, Morro paused. His chest constricted with a crushing emotional weight and dread crept up his spine.

“Is…” Morro stopped, he couldn’t seem to force the words out.

“Yes?”

“Is…  _ Wu _ out there?”

Zane paused on the steps ahead of him and turned to face him. The sunlight outside backlit his figure and obscured his metal face in shadow, but Morro  _ knew  _ he was wearing that stupid look of concern again.

“Yes, Sensei Wu should be in the temple right now…” Zane trailed off and walked back down the steps to Morro and placed a hand on his shoulder. He had to fight the urge to shrug it off.

“I’m sure he’ll be happy to see you,” Zane said quietly.

“Not like this!” Morro snaps before he can stop himself, “I’m a corpse! I’m just going to bring back bad memories. I’ve already done enough of that to him. No one needs me around. Wu  _ never _ needed me around.”

“From what you’ve been saying, it sounds like you believe that no one wants you around. What led you to feel that way?” Zane said. His voice was irritatingly calm and soothing.

“Ugh! You don’t know how I feel! Stop pretending you know how I feel! No one in Wu’s merry band of perfect little students could possibly understand!” Morro gripped his hair in frustration.

“Pfft, what are you even talking about, dude? ‘Perfect students’, have you  _ met  _ us?!” Cole laughed as he walked towards them with a heavy-looking box in tow.

“That’s not how I wanted it to come out.”

“Still, maybe ‘merry band of fuck-ups’ would be more accurate.” Cole quipped, walking past them.

Morro scoffed, sticking his hands back in the hoodie’s pocket and leaning back against the wall. What was wrong with these people? He knew just how he’d prove his point and settle the matter once and for all. He had a trump card.

“At least you didn’t  _ die _ .” Morro snapped.

Cole halted his ascent and turned to face Morro and then Zane, his eyes wide with shock. Zane’s expression of sympathy shattered, leaving behind an unnervingly blank stare. Stiffly, the ice ninja walked up the stairs and out of view without another word.

Cole stood there in a stupor, his dark skin looking a few shades paler. He glanced between Morro and the top of the stairs as if he couldn’t quite process what had just happened. Finally, he dropped the box he was carrying and sprinted up the stairs after Zane.

Morro is left there in the stairwell, alone and utterly baffled. He knew the earth ninja had been a ghost for a while, but that wasn’t  _ really _ dying, right? He was cursed, not killed. The ice ninja had seemed more upset, but he couldn’t begin to ponder the reason that could be. The shift in Zane’s mood had changed so dramatically he didn’t know  _ what _ it meant.

Even if it had come out wrong, he meant what he said. Wu’s students were all great people, and he... wasn’t. It didn’t take a genius to deduce what exactly that said about him. He used to blame Wu for everything that had happened to him, but after meeting this tight-knit team, he’d accepted that he had been the problem all along. Wu has done his best to salvage the unsalvageable, and he’d failed because the task was impossible.

Morro was broken out of his rumination when he heard stomping from the deck growing rapidly closer, then descending the stairs. He felt a familiar wash of terror as the water ninja stopped in front of him. Her face was red and contorted with fury. She grabbed him by the neck, slamming him against the wall and causing his bones to vibrate from the reverb.

“What did you do to Zane?!” She spat.

“How should I know?” Morro snaps back at her, “he walked off in the middle of me explaining something.”

“What. Did. You.  _ Say _ , ” she grit her teeth, and he felt her hold on his vertebrae tighten.

“I died and you all haven't, so you’re better than me! That's all!” He blurted, “I don't see how my death is a surprising topic!”

Nya stilled, and for a moment, Morro thought he'd actually calmed her down. Instead, she dropped him unceremoniously to the floor. Her angry face now held a tinge of grief that wasn't there before. Tears bubbled up from the corners of her eyes.

“You, you stupid, insensitive,  _ jerk _ ! You don't know anything!” she shouted.

“I know the big one was a ghost for a while but it's not like he  _ died _ . I was just making a point—”

“I—“ she paled and shook her head, “Zane did!”

Morro’s thoughts screeched to a halt. He felt like the world had been tilted slightly to the left with the inertia of her words.

When he was alive, portable radios were the height of modern technology. Robots had been a thing of science-fantasy. It had taken him a while to even wrap his mind around the concept of a sapient electronic, but this was on another philosophical level entirely. Could a robot be alive? How was he alive now? Would Zane have a ghost? How does a machine die? He broke his record player once, but he wouldn't say it  _ died _ … and he was certain it had never haunted him.

And yet, the residual memories and emotions from Lloyd told him that Zane was most certainly a person.

With all those thoughts racing through his mind, all Morro managed was a small, “Oh.”

“Yeah, ‘ _ oh _ ’,” Nya glared down at him.

“Shit, I…” Morro made a beeline up the stairs.

The fresh mid-morning air spiraled around him as he stepped out on the deck. He vaguely noticed they were docked hundreds of feet in the sky, next to the Temple of Airjutsu. That wasn't important right now. He scanned his surroundings, trying to catch a flash of titanium on the deck.

“What are you doing?”

Morro turned to see Nya close behind him, eyebrow raised with suspicion. He jumped slightly at the sight of her and took a quick step backward.

“Looking for the metal one.”

“Zane.”

“Whatever,” he muttered, already turning around to continue his search. He began wandering towards the front of the ship. He heard Nya give a loud sigh behind him.

“That’s the forecastle deck, he's on the quarterdeck.”

He stopped and turned around, his confusion must have been painfully apparent.

Nya rolled her eyes, “He’s that way, ” she pointed in the opposite direction.

Morro felt his shoulders hunch in embarrassment and shuffled past her without making eye contact. He made his way towards the back of the Bounty. He knew the water ninja was tailing him, but he could ignore that for now.

He turned the corner behind the helm and was met with the disconcerting sight of Zane hunched over the railing and gazing blankly into the distance. The blue and black ninja were comforting him with gentle touches and quiet assurances. All of Morro’s courage and momentum sputtered out at the sight. It was so intimate and soft. He felt dirty even witnessing it.

Before he could back away quietly, Zane's neck clicked and turned around 180 degrees to face him. Jay and Cole followed his gaze. Morro felt himself shrink further into his borrowed clothes as he looked away.

“What’s wrong with you?!” Jay exclaimed, “You wanna fight! It’s on!” he whipped out his nunchaku and flourished dramatically.

“Jay, it's fine,” Zane told him, but the words sounded heartbreakingly hollow.

Morro felt sick. He couldn't watch himself hurt the person who showed him the most compassion of anyone in recent memory. Zane was an idiot for treating him so well, but he couldn't let himself ruin someone else. Hearing Zane sound so cold and distant was jarring in a way he detested.

“No, it's not fine, ” he said, “You’ve been nothing but nice to me and I—.”

“You didn't know,” Zane said softly.

“It doesn’t matter! I said something stupid and I’m sorry.”

Zane’s eyes widened and his mouth opened slightly. Jay looked just as surprised. Cole, meanwhile, broke down in a fit of laughter.

“What,” Morro snapped, glaring at the earth ninja.

“It’s great to see you like,  _ try _ to act nice, dude… but,” Cole interrupted himself with another round of chuckles, “but it's just funny to see you give an apology to Zane first!”

Morro sputtered indignantly. Even when he tries, he still manages to make things worse!

“I accept your apology, Morro. Thank you, ” Zane stood up straight and turned his body to align with his head.

“What?! Just like that?!” Jay shouted.

“Just like that, ” Zane let out an airy chuckle, still tinged with sadness.

“Just like that, ” Cole laughed and nodded, leaning back on the railing.

Morro looked down at his feet and shuffled awkwardly. He wasn't sure what to do now. All his instincts were screaming at him to run away before he ruined this, but something in the back of his mind held him there.

Zane of course noticed his internal conflict and approached him like a frightened animal. Morro looked up nervously and saw the nindroid open his arms wide and smile. The unspoken invitation was obvious.

And so, Morro hugged another living being for the first time in his foggy and distant memory.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hi everyone! I’m updating a day early because I’ll be unavailable during my usual upload time tomorrow, so enjoy getting chapter 5 like, a whole 20 hours early. Wow.
> 
> Also, a minor writing note: When it comes to the names of various fictional martial arts styles like “airjitzu” and “spinjitzu”, I’m going to be spelling them with the suffix “-jutsu” instead because otherwise it annoys me haha. “Jutsu” is a word... “jitzu” is not.
> 
> Thank you to everyone who leaves comments, especially the regulars! I’m starting to recognize y’all!


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